Mississippi Medicine Show takes you back to the Natchez of the mid 19th century. A recreation of old steamboat times when traveling shows pedaled their miracle cures up and down the mighty Mississippi River with the top talent of the day. Dr. Morphineus Codeine Shingles touts his “Magic Wondrous Healing Oil, the Elixir of Life!” and brings with him his hilarious sidekick, Miss Scarlette, Mark Twain and a group of comics, clowns, and performers singing the popular music of the 1800’s and about the river. Classics by Stephen Foster, Jerome Kern, Roger Miller, spirituals and songs of the Civil War performed in period costumes as well as the wit and wisdom of Mark Twain and songs made famous by the Swedish nightingale, Jenny Lind who visited Natchez in the 1850s.

Mississippi Medicine Show, an original Natchez Little Theatre production, has been entertaining audiences from around the world since 1976. Conceived by the NLT Board of Directors in 1975, as an entertainment for visitors to Natchez during the Fall Pilgrimage, Mississippi Medicine Show derives its name from the traveling shows, which traversed the country in olden times. When the audience gathered, the flamboyant Master of Ceremonies would hawk ‘medicine,’ a cure-all tonic of questionable ingredients. From the first show presented at Natchez Little Theatre in the Millstein Room, this unique variety show has delighted hundreds of thousands of Natchez visitors, not to mention its road performances in New Orleans, San Antonio, Philadelphia, throughout Alabama and aboard the steamboat, Delta Queen. The show so delighted audiences that is was called back for seventeen performances during the New Orleans World’s Fair of 1984.